Victoria to get ICAC as Premier backflips: will SA follow suit?

I've been on a brief visit to Melbourne. Yesterday morning I was pleasantly surprised to see the story about Premier Brumby's "backflip" on the front page of The Age


Just six months out from the state poll, the Premier has dumped his staunch opposition to a commission and will install an anti-corruption system with sweeping powers to investigate police, members of parliament, public servants and judges.

But the new Victorian Integrity and Anti-Corruption Commission will hold most of its hearings in private and the new integrity system will curtail the powers of the Ombudsman.

Mr Brumby has long argued independent corruption commissions were a ''lawyers' picnic'' but yesterday said an integrity review by former senior public servant Elizabeth Proust calling for a commission had changed his mind.

The obvious question for South Australia is: will the Premier follow suit? As the last Rann man standing so it's hard to see him holding out for much longer.

Heat and fire

Bushfires have caused huge loss of life and property damage in Victoria.

As I post it appears that at least 65 people have died and 600 homes been destroyed . This figure may well be exceeded.

After almost a fortnight of extreme heat in Adelaide spanning late January and early February without any major fires I'd assumed that the worst was over. This may have been true for South Australia, but it was not for Victoria where a cocktail of high temperatures and high winds wrought destruction yesterday and overnight.

I, like many others in southern Australia, have been uncomfortable in the heat of the last two weeks but seeing what has happened to so many people in Victoria has put my discomfort into perspective. It is trivial in comparison to their sufferings. My sympathies to them and condolences to those who have lost family and friends.

All bets are on

It's a concern to see that, as the ABC reports the Victorian government has approved betting on races via TV. While it's true that alternative forms of home based betting (telephone, internet) are available, and have been for some time, the gambling industry seems always to want to take a giant step forward while not really pausing, let alone taking a step backwards, to make it easier for people to bet rather than in trying to help those who become compulsive gamblers.

It also looks as if the SA government may follow in Victoria's wake. Senator-elect Xenophon has spoken out about it, quoting the Rev Tim Costello's line about being able to lose your home without leaving it.

All this comes with little notice, and only a couple of weeks after Mr Rudd expressed his concern about the ease of access to ATMs in many gambling venues. While he didn't promise to change government policy, his raising the topic is at least an indication that he may be well disposed to introducing more restrictions on gambling at some stage in the future.

In the meantime if you're so inclined and you live in Victoria, you can sit back, relax, reach for the form guide and TV remote control and place your wagers. Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to gambling per se but have heard too many horror stories to believe that governments should be expanding the ways in which people can gamble. Of course, those governments rely upon gambling taxes for a significant chunk of their revenue ( I think it may be about 14 - 15% in SA) so you can hardly blame them for trying to rake in more.

Ash Wednesday 25 years on

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Ash Wednesday fires, which burnt through large tracts of South Australia and Victoria and took many lives.

At the time I was living near the Adelaide foothills. I can still recall seeing a wall of flame advancing steadily across a hill not far away from my home. Fortunately for me and my family a cool change accompanied by a change of wind direction and some rain helped the firefighters to contain and then control the fires in the vicinity.

Much of Cleland Conservation Park, was burnt out, though the affected areas slowly regenerated in the following years (unfortunately plants like blackberries did so more rapidly than the native flora).

Today The Advertiser/Adelaide Now and The Australian both acknowledge the anniversary with their coverage . On the other hand, while tonight's ABC TV South Australian News also led with the story, the ABC website only has a brief report. I wouldn't for a moment suggest that the brevity is because the fires didn't approach Sydney.

Backwater

The rivalry (or whatever else you may like to call it) between SA and Victoria has surfaced again following a claim by Victorian Premier Brumby that Adelaide is a "backwater".

Mr Brumby told a Melbourne media conference yesterday that unless Victoria pushed ahead with a $1 billion plan to deepen the channel in Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne would end up like Adelaide."If you want Melbourne to be a backwater, if you want Melbourne eventually to be an Adelaide – as someone described it the other day – well, don't do this project, and Melbourne will just die a slow death," he said.The major dredging project has caused deep division in Melbourne because of environmental concerns.

Mr Rann said Victoria's insecurity stemmed from losing the $6 billion Air Warfare Destroyer contract to South Australia."The Victorians are becoming more defensive because the centre of gravity for Australia's economic future is now firmly based in states like West Australia, Queensland and South Australia," he said."They (Victoria) announced plans to dredge their port back in early 2002, but they haven't got cracking with it," he said."They've been talking about it year after year while we got on with it, and we did it without stuffing up the environment. "We've overcome that here, and that's why we've been winning defence projects and have got a multimillion-dollar mining boom on the way."

Mr Rann may have a point about the port dredging, but he's being more than a bit disingenuous by arguing on economic grounds and also by linking SA with WA and Queensland, two states whose economies have been flourishing for several years now.

Adelaide and SA haven't had an economy to compare with Melbourne and Victoria's for more than 150 years, so if we judge by that criterion we are a backwater. But if you look at qualitative factors, eg the kind of things mentioned in a recent New York Times travel article, then you get a different perspective.

The Advertiser/ Adelaide Now's Rex Jory occasionally writes pieces which capture the flavour of the city. He first drew my attention to the NYT piece in his column last week , though he's also well aware of the less sophisticated side of Adelaide, as this from last year shows.

It's interesting that Mr Brumby's comments have elicited considerable support, if the online poll conducted by Adelaide Now/ The Advertiser is any guide.

Dr Johnson once said "the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England". Perhaps for many people the same holds true about the road to Melbourne (or beyond). My children, who have both moved away from Adelaide (I understand and support why they've done so) would probably concur with Mr Brumby.

I'm sure that Mr Rann, despite his knee jerking boosterism, understands this as well, even though he's chosen to respond with a frontal counter attack when a guerilla style hit and run would have made his point more effectively. And, if he's serious about doing something tangible to ameliorate the backwater perception he could commit to electrifying our major suburban railways. This, after all, has been done in Perth and Brisbane, the other two cities which he believes comprise, with Adelaide, "the centre of gravity for Australia's economic future".